wethepeopleofamerica.org

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., has abruptly walked away from her responsibilities with the Senate Military Construction Appropriations Subcommittee after a report linked her votes to the financial well-being of her husband’s companies, which received billions of dollars worth of military construction contracts she approved.

As reported in Metroactive, an online report from the Silicon Valley, Feinstein’s resignation followed six years of subcommittee work during which time her alleged conflict of interest stemmed from her husband Richard C. Blum’s ownership of Perini Corp. and URS Corp.

Feinstein, chairman and ranking member of the subcommittee, regularly reviewed and accepted contracts from her husband’s companies for not only construction work for military bases, but also addressing “quality of life” issues for the veterans of the United States military services.

“As MILCON leader, Feinstein relished the details of military construction, even micromanaging one project at the level of its sewer design,” wrote Peter Byrne in the report. “She regularly took junkets to military bases around the world to inspect construction projects, some of which were contracted to her husband’s companies, Perini Corp. and URS Corp.”

He suggested perhaps Feinstein resigned “because she could not take the heat generated by metro’s expose of her ethics… Or was her work on the subcommittee finished because Blum divested ownership of his military construction and advanced weapons manufacturing firms in late 2005?”

The writer also noted another reason could be that since that subcommittee is responsible for veterans’ “quality of life” issues, perhaps she was trying to distance herself from the military’s failure to provide decent medical care for wounded servicemembers.

“Feinstein abandoned MILCON as her ethical problems were surfacing in the media, and as it was becoming clear that her subcommittee left grievously wounded veterans to rot while her family was profiting from the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. It turns out that Blum also holds large investments in companies that were selling medical equipment and supplies and real estate leases – often without the benefit of competitive bidding – to the Department of Veterans Affairs, even as the system of medical care for veterans collapsed on his wife’s watch,” he wrote.

The Metroactive report, based on research partly funded by the Investigative Fund of the Nation Institute, noted that as of the end of 2006, federal documents showed three companies in which Blum’s financial entities owned a total of $1 billion in stock got $17.8 million for medical equipment and supplies (Boston Scientific Corp.), $12 million for medical supplies and equipment (Kinetic Concepts Inc.), and additional funding through lease contracts (CB Richard Ellis).

Read Full Story